Recently there has been an increase in the demand for cheeses that have widely differing performance characteristics. This particular demand is driven in part by the increasing variety of prepared foods in which such cheeses are included. In fact, there often is a need for different performance qualities even for foods of the same general type because of the different ways cheese is utilized or because the cheese is exposed to differing cooking environments or conditions. Pizzas illustrate this point well because there are so many different types of pizzas. Pizzas, for example, have widely differing crusts, including thick, thin, or somewhere in between. The cheese can also be exposed or wrapped in the edge of the crust. Furthermore, the crust may be completely uncooked or it may be parbaked before being put in the oven with the cheese. Each of these variables potentially impacts the composition of the cheese required to provide satisfactory performance.
Demand for cheese with varying performance characteristics is also driven in part by the significant increase in the different types of baking equipment and conditions that are being used to prepare food products containing soft or firm/semi-hard cheese. Some baking operations, for instance, require relatively high oven temperatures (e.g., in the range of about 350 to 950° F. (177-510° C.)) with short baking times (e.g., in the range of about 30 seconds to 15 minutes). Such conditions may be used, for instance, in an impingement oven when baking a pizza having a thin crust. Other ovens, such as deck ovens, in contrast, sometimes use a relatively long bake time (e.g., about 6 to 60 minutes) and a correspondingly lower oven temperature (e.g., about 300 to 750° F. (149 to 399° C.)). Instead of baking, some foods topped with or including soft or firm/semi-hard cheese are prepared by microwaving (e.g., about 1-6 minutes).
Consumer demand for cheeses with improved nutritional content (e.g., nutritionally balanced, lower fat) has also increased the demand for new varieties of soft or firm/semi-hard cheese.
There are a variety of challenges to providing cheeses that have a composition which satisfies the desired performance characteristics and nutritional qualities. For instance, it can be difficult to obtain the desired concentration level of some ingredients in a cheese. Another problem is developing a process that activates the latent functional properties of certain ingredients. Another problem is that many methods for preparing soft or firm/semi-hard cheese involve the loss of significant quantities of some cheese components during processing. This can occur, for instance, when such cheeses undergo the heating and stretching process of the pasta filata process. Often the heating is conducted in heated water, which can remove significant amounts of cheese ingredients.
In view of the demand for cheese and the foregoing shortcomings associated with some existing methods for preparing cheeses with the desired performance characteristics, there thus remains a need for additional methods for preparing cheeses of various types.